Beyond Caution
by Sarsel
Summary: Teddy asks Rayna for a divorce in Nashville instead of the next day in Chicago. Deacon walks on the airplane to a very different situation than he was expecting.
1. Chapter 1

Note: Thank you for reading my story. I wanted to write a story where Rayna reacts to all the stress of her life by pursuing Deacon with a very narrow minded focus. She spends so much time in the show talking about how she wants to protect everyone's hearts and do right by Deacon that it makes me think that those are things she has to put a lot of effort into because they're not her natural reaction. I wanted to give Rayna some breathing room to act without thinking and then maybe see what kind of consequences have been stirred up.

Enjoy!

-Kristy

Teddy drove them all to the airport and had his arm around Maddie's shoulders as Rayna hugged Daphne goodbye last and walked towards the plane. Rayna turned back around every two or three steps to wave goodbye again and again to her girls and Teddy knew not a single one of those goodbyes had been for him. He and Rayna and said all their goodbyes the night before when he told her he wanted a divorce. Today they stood in the middle of an airstrip being parents, pretending everything was fine until they had a plan and answers for their daughters.

The three members of the family who were not heading out on a national tour waited in the terminal, not even considering leaving until the plane had taken off safely and was out of sight. The plane hadn't begun to move yet when Teddy turned to hear a door slam behind him. Deacon breezed by with a quick hello to the girls and was on the plane less than a minute later. Teddy didn't know whether to feel a twisted justification for asking Rayna for a divorce the night before or to feel crushed that he was sending her out on the road with him again, only without their marriage holding her back from his worst nightmare. He did the only thing he could; watched the plane take off, herded the girls into the car and felt both horrible feelings at the same time.

Rayna's great strength as a songwriter and performer was the fact that her passionate emotions were never more than a hair's width below the surface. She had tantrums aplenty ready to spark inside her on a bad day, bubbling joy evident on her face while on stage and a big gooey heart on her sleeve which made writing love songs flow like water back in the day. Still, you didn't grow up in the Wyatt house or endure her level of fame without developing a game face to get you through long dinners, business meetings or fawning fans when you were having a bad day. By the time Juliette's jet was in the air Rayna had a magazine open and a mask of indifference on her face that would put her teenage daughter to shame.

Deacon was on the tour. Deacon was on the tour with Juliette Barnes. She had fired Deacon but he had found a way back. She couldn't begin to figure out why he was on this tour. Juliette was certainly of the opinion that he was there for her and that she had won something. Maybe that was true, and the possibility was almost enough to make Rayna airsick. He had written a song with Juliette, had almost certainly slept with her at some point, might still be sleeping with her. The magazine in Rayna's hands inched up incase that horrible thought was visible on her face.

He was sitting there slouched in his seat with his sunglasses on, looking as unaffected and aloof as she'd ever seen him. She knew she had hurt him firing him from her band. She knew he still cared about her; the anger in his voice after their fight at his house had been the most recent proof of that. Was he on this tour because of her?

Well he was certainly trying to hurt her. That was another take away from their fight. He went digging back 14 years to find the biggest knife he could to stab her with, ripping apart every polite compromise they'd built their friendship on. She could have waited for him. He's been suffering for fourteen years without her and it's her fault. That's how he felt yesterday and that's how he's apparently felt for fourteen years being Rayna's without Rayna being his.

And today he walked onto a plane announcing that he was Juliette's.

Well he won. She was hurt.

And after half an hour of not reading that magazine and pondering the convoluted motivations of a guitar player's games, Rayna had a moment of clarity. Deacon may have been in Juliette's band and may have written songs with the pop tart, but he was on that plane because of Rayna James. There was no way he went from loving her quietly from afar for all those years to yelling at her yesterday to ignoring her today. Whether he was here to be close to her, to hurt her or both didn't particularly matter. He was there for her and he had no clue her marriage was over.

At that thought Rayna actually smiled. It wasn't a very kind thought but it was the first time since last night that the phrase 'my marriage is over' made her feel anything other than failure and dread. Her marriage was over and Deacon didn't know. She was walking around holding a winning hand she could play at any point and crush Deacon Claybourne's petty little games of 'you hurt me so i'm going to hurt you'. She could give them what she knew they both wanted. She could take him back from miss Sparklypants whenever she chose to because if there was one certainty that Rayna knew in her bones, it was that Deacon loved her, wanted her and had always been waiting for her. She'd spent fourteen years pretending that wasn't true. Now there was nothing actually holding them apart and she was the only one who knew it.

Rayna swallowed her smile and began to read the magazine properly now. She could wait, pick her moment and when she was ready she was going to rock Deacon's world.

Deacon looked like he might have been sleeping with those dark sunglasses hiding his eyes but he wasn't tired at all. He let himself watch Ray all he wanted, thinking to himself that she looked exhausted. Maybe she hadn't been able to sleep after their fight the day before. Maybe she'd been up late having sex with her husband before heading out for another month of touring. He let each thought feed his anger and felt a hell of a lot more in control of himself with that familiar emotion than he had with the despair and lack of direction he'd felt since he'd been fired from her band to save her marriage.

He was just about to close his eyes and drift into a nap when he saw Rayna flinch and her eyes flick up to him and right back down to the magazine he knew she wasn't reading. The corners of her mouth began to tilt up in a dangerous smile which she couldn't completely hide. He didn't know exactly what she was thinking but but he'd seen that expression before. He'd seen it anytime Rayna let go of caution and decided to take a chance on something. It was the face she made after tossing her hair and shrugging shoulders and having total faith that everything would work out simply because she wouldn't allow anything else. Deacon watched it all cross her face and had three simultaneous thoughts: She was beautiful when she took risks, he hadn't seen her with that look in quite some time and that maybe, he hadn't quite been prepared for the consequences of getting on this plane.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: Thank you for your reviews and support. Here's chapter two. It's short but I feel like I'm getting a better handle on what it was I was feeling in Rayna. You'll notice that I really don't naturally write dialogue. That's something that I'll hopefully get better at as I push myself. Thankfully that first elevator ride was silent.

Also things start getting a bit sexy in this chapter

-Kristy

By the end of the flight Rayna had a swing in her step and a song in her heart. She was humming once her car was on the way to the hotel. Bucky usually looked worried about something but Rayna's obvious delight was very off putting, especially as he had been expecting an angry interrogation demanding to know what he did and did not know about Deacon's arrival. Years of experiencing managing things for Rayna, as well as managing Rayna herself, suggested that he spend the ride into Chicago with his mouth shut and his face pointed at his phone.

Rayna jumped out of the SUV when they pulled up at the hotel. She had taken all the anger and worry surrounding her divorce and decided to set it aside and do her absolute best to not think about it for a few days. Didn't she deserve that? Screw deserving she decided. She just flat out needed it. Instead she focused her mind on the one man whom she could obsess about without end. Even the hordes of Juliette's screaming fans didn't phase her.

Juliette was absolutely itching for Rayna to crack and show some sign of irritation. "Just admit that you're pissed!" She said. Ha! Nothing could have eased the sting of Deacon joining Juliette's band any better than the obvious way Juliette kept making it all about Rayna. With all the natural confidence of a woman who knew she was in a position of strength Rayna said "Girl are you ever going to grow up?" and sauntered inside behind Bucky.

A few minutes later the White Lies/Red Lips tour had checked into the hotel and Rayna found herself in an even more confining private environment with Deacon than the jet had been. She stared at him while he ignored her all the way up. He looked tired and the same instinct that had brought Rayna to his house the day before to check on him rose up again and demanded she protect him. But then she remembered the brutal honest words he had flung in her face yesterday and every time she had tried to prevent hurting him over the last fourteen years and every time her efforts had failed. She had always watched her words around him, kept Teddy's name out light conversation, made whatever subtle manipulations she could to keep her band leading best friend from ever being in the same room as her husband. She had worked for fourteen years trying to protect him and look what it had gotten her; the inevitable divorce and an angry Deacon who refused to speak to her.

The elevator stopped on Deacon's floor and he walked off without a word or glance. That just cemented the plan in Rayna's mind. She wasn't going to hurt him this time but she definitely wasn't going to make it easy on him either. She knew how hard the last few months had been on him. Here he was though, defiant and sober and strong, the one man who could always match her and she needed that today. She needed their games and their passion for each other and she decided that as long as it all ended well then everything else was fair game.

* * *

Chicago lay spread out below Rayna's feet as she looked out the windows of the penthouse suite. Walking away from the floor to ceiling windows she flopped down onto the sofa and stared at the ceiling instead. What should she do? What could she do?

She could figure out Deacon's room number, go there right now, convince him to let her inside and then get naked before he had a chance to wonder why. Rayna giggled and smiled. She had definitely used such aggressive seduction techniques before in their relationship. How amazing it felt to know that if she chose she could be in a bed with Deacon in less than fifteen minutes. She could have her mouth on his skin and her hands wrapped around his shoulders. She could run her lips down his neck and drag her nails across his low back and find out if he still growled low in his throat when she pushed him like that.

Obviously she wasn't going to go knock on Deacon's door today. That was too easy; too fast. He was in such a bad, combative mood that while she was almost certain he wouldn't kick her out, she would much rather put in the time and effort to make him want her. She had spent over a decade fighting the sexual energy that could build up between them so swiftly. She had turned off the huge part of herself that revelled in making Deacon Claybourne pant and that Rayna James needed to be let out for change.

Planning and patience were going to be required elements to this campaign and Rayna let her joyfully naughty mind dance over all the things she was going to do to make Deacon her's again and all things she could be doing to him right now, then all of the things he would do to her. In the privacy of her hotel suite all alone, Rayna's face had the biggest most excited grin as she decided how she would actually spend the next hour of her day. Guilt free thinking about Deacon was a luxury she hadn't enjoyed in far too many years and she was eager to enjoy it. Rayna undid the top button of her jeans and indulged herself. Her last coherent thought that wasn't about the sounds Deacon used to make or arch of her hips was that this was going to a great tour.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Thank you everyone for the reviews and comments. I'm committed to making this a good story and expanding my writing a bit. You'll notice actual dialogue in this chapter! (albeit one sided) Critique or advice will be well received and I'd love to hear if you think I'm repeating myself too often or if you have any opinion on where the story might go or how to improve it.

The next chapter should start getting steamy.

* * *

Night one in Chicago was a pretty amazing show. Rayna opened the show with a little bit of extra kink in her hair and a little bit less clothing from her hips down.

"It's a mini skirt night" Rayna mumbled to herself as she was flipping through outfits on the rack in her dressing room. "Look out Chicago!" Skirts meant a little bit less stomping around the stage but they had their advantages too. She wondered if Deacon would even watch her set; She couldn't even remember the last time she'd been on a stage with him somewhere near and not directly behind her on guitar. Well on the chance that Mr. Claybourne's eyes were pointed at her stage, she was going to put on a show. She tossed her hair, smiled brighter than the spotlights themselves and just totally killed it. There was absolutely nothing better for making a woman feel powerful and sexy than absolutely owning twenty three thousand people's attention for ninety minutes. Rayna strutted off stage and took a nice lingering walk back to her dressing room, stopping to chat and wave along the way.

Adria came up beside her while Rayna was signing autographs for fans who had been invited backstage. Rayna generously slung an arm around the young woman's shoulders and thanked her for a great show. She gave the young guitar player buckets of positive attention and feedback, willfully oblivious to the fact that she could apparently only be nice and supportive to a guitar player now that Deacon was in the same building.

When Adria took off to join the show's after party, Rayna spent a minute touching base with Bucky before her attention swiftly diverted to her target. He was chatting with Marc, her drummer, right across the hall from her dressing room. Three minutes of some of the most awkward conversation she'd ever been part of passed and Deacon slid away, presumably off to join the teeny bopper act he'd signed up with.

Watching Deacon walk away from her dressing room, after treating her like a stranger back at the hotel and acting like a naive asshole just then, was a bitter moment. He had completely shut her out and there was nothing in his eyes for her when they talked. Trying to dig an answer out of him only made it worse right up to the point when he said he'd try and stay out of her way. Standoffish smug son of a bitch! That's when Rayna figured out he was trying to keep himself safe from her. She felt a flicker of shame because she knew why he was trying to keep himself safe. Even worse, he was entirely justified in doing so. She was dangerous to him, always had been in one way or another and here she was two days after ending her marriage and she was stalking him like a jungle cat after prey.

Almost thirty years of history and instinct rose up in her with the need to protect him. There wasn't a single more frustrating man in the universe because just as strong as the protective desire was, there was that corresponding desire to go after him with the same determination she went after most things in life. She knew that line with Deacon between taking care of that fragile artist's soul of his and provoking the passionate thunderstorm that was inside him but usually kept under lock and key.

Rayna had spent years being careful around Deacon, not wanting to provoke him. She had wanted to keep him from feeling too much and reacting, either by going to a bar, being angry at her or what was always much, much worse, looking at her like he forgot every barrier between them existed and making her life extraordinarily difficult. Calm, temperate Deacon was a friend she could keep in her life and she had put a lot of effort into helping him maintain that nonchalance with her. The last few months had set that apple cart on its ass and Rayna could see it in Deacon's eyes when he told her he'd try and stay out of her way. She could see he was actively pulling away to keep that same wall up between them and around his heart. He was an expert at trying to protect his heart from her now and she was ready for the first time in years to start ripping those defenses down. She was sick and tired of all the things she had put her heart through and Deacon would quite simply just have to catch up.

Backup singers who toured with Rayna figured it out pretty quick. Rayna was the sweetest friendliest woman they may ever work with and always acted like one of the girls rather than the boss. And just like any other girl who had had a thing with a guy in the band, she wanted to know what he was doing, she didn't want to know too much and she was never sure if she wanted him to know that she knew or not. Ray's head would go still if anyone said Deacon's name while grabbing a break or while on a bus. She would turn her ear to hear every word about the groupie that was seen leaving his room that morning or the out of town friend a singer had introduced to him the week before who then spent two nights getting a private tour of Nashville from it's finest guitarist. She wanted to know just as much as she could stand because she couldn't help herself and not a word more. She couldn't take hearing that the groupie couldn't have been a day over 21 or that the friend was coming back two weeks later hoping to see him again. Rayna wasn't one to fire someone for something so trivial but over the years Bucky had handed a few people termination notices citing personality conflicts, along with a job offer lined up with another artist and an apologetic look.

Deacon had even had a fling with a backup singer named Heather for over a month on a small tour they'd done in 2004. Rayna saw them chatting together beside the stage sometimes and eating breakfast together from craft services before sound check one day. Deacon generally kept his romantic life low key and Heather was smart enough not to flaunt the fact that she was sharing hotel rooms with the band leader. Rayna had her hands full performing most nights and keeping baby Daphne happy riding on the bus, but no matter how full her days were with work and baby, she could never keep her emotions focused. No one remembered that tour fondly. Rayna picked fights with Deacon about his guitar solos and chord progressions and after awhile Deacon was sniping right back about diva dips. She knew by the end of the second day of the tour that its not easy on him to spend every day with her and her new baby on the road, far from Teddy. Every day must have been a slice of agony over the road not taken. Before the tour was half over she was telling herself that she was glad Deacon decided to fill his nights with backup singers instead of bottles, while she spent every night alone in hotel rooms with tears leaking out of her eyes and milk leaking out of her breasts while Daphne slept. When the tour ended Heather wasn't invited back.

Rayna thought about that tour and every other time over the past few years she watched Deacon retreat from her. Each and every time she watched him make that stupid innocent face, acting like a guy who plays guitar for people who pay him. What horseshit! Every time he pulled away she felt her stomach clench and her brain tell her it was for the best. That distance would make her marriage easier and that maybe space from her would bring him happiness. She reminded herself though that those attempts had never worked. She'd watched him climb into Juliette's blue pickup. He came back. She'd watched him go on tour with the Revel Kings and that hadn't worked either. By the time she'd left the arena and made it back to the hotel Rayna had worked up a healthy head of steam over how protecting Deacon's heart and gotten both of them absolutely nowhere.

* * *

The next morning she had her mind firmly on business while breakfasting with Watty. She was proud of her show but was still damn nervous about having him watch her having to share a stage with Juliette. She was even more nervous about debuting her newer material to him for the first time. "I'll be curious to hear what you think" she'd said. Doubt was something that only really came out in her voice when she was talking to Watty.

She left breakfast weighing her ambition to run a successful label with the consequences of bringing Deacon's niece into the game and that was when Deacon stepped into the elevator. It was so nice of Wattty to hand her this fantastic ice pick to start breaking the silence with.

"Hey, how about Gunner and Scarlett? Watty sent me their demo. They are amazing. She's got all your talent." gushed Rayna.

Silence.

"Enjoying the tour?" She tried again. "Never thought I'd see the day you were singing Boys and Busses with Juliette Barnes but you know life never ceases to amaze." She let her voice drawl out like quicksand for him to jump into like a woman who makes a living with her voice can do.

Silence. Fine. Time to to bust out the big guns.

"Teddy asked me for a divorce."

Rayna heard all the air in the tiny elevator get sucked into Deacon's lungs and she watched with a smirk as he turned his whole body to stare at her. His eyes had lost that stupid sad puppy look he'd been perfecting and now he looked entirely stunned. But he was looking her in the eye and really seeing her for the first time in weeks and she felt her heart flutter. She felt weak and happy and wanted to fall into his arms and be carried away but they weren't there yet and she was still playing her hand.

The softness of her thoughts was evident in her eyes though and made all kinds of promises to Deacon in those seconds before the elevators doors opened. Deacon hadn't moved and was still silent when Rayna broke the spell.

"Is this your floor Deacon?" He didn't answer so she stepped forward and rested her hip against the edge of the elevator door to prop it open. "I asked if this was your floor." All Deacon could do was nod. Rayna nodded back.

"Then you should get off here, and I'll see ya later then." She stepped aside and Deacon, having no other apparent option, walked into the hallway and watched the doors shut between them. Rayna's smile slid across her whole face once she was alone. She took a deep breath and savoured the sweet anticipation.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Here's a bit of a longer chapter thankfully. Not the steam I was planning but some more flirting at least.

enjoy

* * *

It was the look in Deacon's eyes in the second before the elevator doors shut that caused her to make her next decision. He was going to come to her. She would not lay a single finger on Deacon until he touched her first. It wasn't an unfamiliar game; far from it. She was 18 the first time. Well, to be honest she was 16 when she started the flirting and taunting but she was 18 the first time Deacon gave in. Almost two years of growing up and testing limits and taking charge of her own life, all the while swimming joyfully and a little trepidatiously in the big dirty world of professional music. Hormones were screaming through her body on a constant basis and thankfully ambition, and healthy dose of common sense, kept her from making mistakes that were bigger than she could handle.

Those had been heady times. Sixteen years old, not a virgin but not really experienced at all and there she was kicked out of her father's mansion and learning what power and vulnerability really were. Rayna had never been the type of beautiful girl who didn't realize the effect she had on people. She had always had the nicest clothes, time to primp and experiment and a legion of country club boys calling her up and knocking on her door whom she had little interest in. Then she was playing in dimly lit cafes and bars wearing sparkly boots and tight shirts singing love songs and she saw how people responded, both to her and the music. That was the power, knowing how to say no with a smile and make people like hearing it. The vulnerability part was one half learning how to swim in the bigger pond she'd swam into. The other half was not knowing how yet to say yes.

So she danced around the edges, went on dates and went to parties, had boyfriends and was kept safe by her own principles and determination and the combined reputations of Watty White and Lamar Wyatt. She flirted the way a foal knows how to run only a few hours after birth. Time and experience just made her even better at it. Deacon was three years older than her and treated the little firecracker princess with just enough room to flex her claws without letting them scratch him. He would flirt back with a drawling charm that set him apart from more assertive guys and their bad pickup lines. He made no effort to pretend that he didn't like looking at her, talking with her, playing music with her but no way was he going to dive into what looked like the biggest pile of trouble he had ever laid eyes on. Sixteen years old with more ammunition than any girl he'd ever met, more ambition than he'd seen on anyone yet in that town and Deacon Claybourne wasn't stupid enough to stick is hand directly into that flame.

Didn't mean though that he didn't like the warmth. Didn't mean that she was going to take it easy on him once she realized that he wasn't going to be doing any of the chasing.

If there was a type of guy that Rayna appreciated more than anyone those days, it was a guy who could flirt without expectation or hurt feelings. Men and boys with sunny dispositions who would compliment her, tease her and make her feel alive and happy without any pressure. For the most part Deacon was like that back then; easy smiles and darlin's on his lips as often as songs. He was also moody and quick to anger and didn't walk with the confidence he'd develop later on. Back then it was guys like Liam who made her days brighter. Boys with swagger, who could either back it up or not, and who loved playing the game.

Whenever Deacon and Rayna were on stage together though Deacon started to shine. His guitar playing sounded smoother and followed her voice in counterpoint and as they sang together more often they began to improvise and play off of one another and each sounded twice as good with the other than they did apart. She was seventeen when she first heard him sing a love song on stage by himself. It was one he'd written and afterwards she tossed her hair over her shoulder and asked him point blank if it was about her. He said something vague and called her princess and never answered the question. That was when she decided.

It took six months of long looks, short shorts, casual touches and playing with her hair constantly before she was ready to kick him in frustration. She flirted outrageously with other boys when he was watching, which only managed to start fights, first between him and a bass player at an open mike, and then later between the two of them. All that accomplished was the two of them saulking for two weeks. What finally made Deacon grab her wrist, tilt her chin up and kiss her was a song she wrote. She really should have figured that out sooner.

As their relationship grew over the years, and their love provided a safe privacy for Rayna to develop her sensuality, the games grew with them. If she was going to be home before him, he could find her in their living room in nothing but panties dancing in the living room, totally ignoring him even though she had to have heard his truck pull up. He would never forget until the day he died the lap dance she'd given him to Honky Tonk Woman, slapping his hands if he tried to touch her before the song had finished.

Deacon and Rayna had been together for about ten years and if either of them even hinted that the sex was boring, they would have been struck by lightening on the spot for lying. Deacon knew how to turn her inside out, drive her crazy and make scream all at the same time and gave as good as he got. There were games within games within games between them and Rayna had picked her weapons to end this thirteen year armistice. Deacon had heard the battle horn sounding loud and clear and now it was only a question of how hard he was going to make her work for it and how long he could resist.

* * *

Both acts were scheduled for a twenty minute sound check each that night. Everything had gone perfectly the night before and the equipment was all set up but you don't take chances with an arena tour of this size in front of that many paying fans. Juliette, and then Rayna, would have time to run through two or three songs, test out the connections and sound quality and then an hour later fans would start being let in from the lines stretching around the United Center.

Deacon was up on stage leading the band while Juliette paced the stage and did the tame soundcheck version of Telescope. Rayna was at the side stage watching him. Once Juliette was done, she walked straight off stage and back to her dressing room, not even noticing Rayna in the shadows by the gear. The band took a bit longer to unplug their instruments, even as roadies rushed the stage and started switching Juliette's set up with Rayna's. The lady herself climbed up on stage and Deacon's eyes swerved to her before he even knew what he was seeing.

Cutoff denim shorts and a St. Louis Rams shirt that he hadn't seen in at least fifteen years. The shirt was big on her but tucked into the cutoffs that just made the words 'Rayna's ass!' flash in his brain like a strobe light. Damn; she looked like she rolled right out of his bed or was just walking inside from sitting on the boat dock at his cabin. Deacon absent mindedly took his guitar case from a roadie and put the guitar inside while more than half watching the most bewitching woman he'd ever met.

Rayna wasn't interested in being any more coy than she absolutely needed to be and sauntered right up to Deacon.

"Hey" she said. Deacon nodded in reply and then swept his eyes up and down her body, deliberately hiding his appreciation,

"That's my shirt" he replied, sounding annoyed.

"Well, seems to be it's been living in my closet since about, oh, maybe 1998 so I figured it was mine now." she replied. Shit he thought, she's kept a sweaty t-shirt she grabbed off his floor one morning for the entire time she was married and now she's getting divorced. If he'd been in a worse mood he would have said something cruel about her marriage but his brain was firing off memories, or maybe just fantasies, of her slipping that shirt over naked breasts one morning. It was also reminding him of her tight cutoffs and how much he wanted to run his fingers gently along the bottom of those shorts and feel the white denim fringe brushing against her warm thighs.

"Well it always did look better on you I suppose. Little casual for sound check though isn't it?" He couldn't remember the last time he saw her wearing a t-shirt. The most casual thing she ever wore in public was jeans and those soft long sweaters she liked.

Rayna shrugged, "No one cares what I wear to soundcheck as long as I've got my rhinestones and boots on at showtime." He couldn't help but chuckle at that. A few beats of silence passed before Rayna spoke again. "You know Watty's watching the show tonight?"

"Yea, I heard that. When's he getting here?" Deacon asked as he picked up his guitar case.

"Just before showtime" replied Rayna. "We'll be in my dressing room if you want to stop by and say hi before the show starts." she offered.

Deacon nodded again, otherwise keeping a pretty blank face. Too blank to be natural thought Rayna. "Could do," he replied non committedly "I'll definitely see him after Juliette's set too."

Rayna smiled, actually happy with his vague answer. This wasn't going to be as good if it was easy. "Alright then" she drawled, "Have a good show." and she turned away from him to go find her mic for soundcheck.

* * *

Rayna had spent a lot of time in her life being places she didn't want to be and not letting it show. The tour had done about twenty five shows so far and after watching the first two shows Juliette put on, Rayna had generally not caught more than one or two numbers of Juliette's act. She was going to spend the second night in Chicago watching the whole glitter bomb with Watty which was more upsetting than watching Deacon play guitar for an hour was really worth.

The stage was all set and the crowd was chanting. Juliette wasn't late yet but everyone was waiting for her to strut out through the side stage and great the crowd. Rayna almost didn't recognize the star when she walked past in jeans and dress shirt, all her long blond hair straight and simple. She took the stage and started talking to the audience. One thing Rayna could respect about that kid was she was always entertaining at least.

Then Juliette invited Deacon up to center stage, looked up into his eyes and started to sing and Rayna stopped being entertained.


End file.
